


Parlez-Vous Francais

by yuri_plicatsky



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Self-Esteem Issues, gets kinda dialogue heavy especially towards the end oops, it's not described though so don't worry, right at the very end, there is one (1) swear, they're both gay and stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22444873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuri_plicatsky/pseuds/yuri_plicatsky
Summary: Nobody knows how hard is it being in love with your best friend than Steve Rogers.Nobody knows how hard it is to find someone to talk to about being in love with your best friend than Bucky Barnes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	Parlez-Vous Francais

It’s hard being in love with your best friend.

Through the dim bar lights, Steve watches Bucky smile, leaning towards this week’s girl and brushing her hair behind her ear. He sighs.

It’s really hard being in love with your best friend.

“Wanna head out, doll?” Bucky asks and the girl (although, Steve supposes, she’s an adult, he shouldn’t be thinking of her as a ‘girl’) blushes as she nods. She kisses Bucky on the cheek and hurries to her friends. Bucky turns to Steve and gives him the signal, the one that explains where the night is going for him. Steve grins back, putting as much enthusiasm behind his fake smile as he can.

The girl –woman– returns and Bucky’s arm slips over her shoulders like that’s where it was meant to be all along. If Steve hadn’t been feeling the bitter burn of jealousy, he could have admitted, as an artist, that they made quite the aesthetically pleasing couple. The kind of couple he would have had no trouble sketching if he’d seen them at the diner in the morning. 

It’s not late in the evening, but Steve doesn’t want to be in this bar anymore, surrounded by people who didn’t feel like he did, by people who would never know what it felt like to be him. Weak little Stevie Rogers, always a day from infection and two days from death. What would they say if they knew? Weak.

Steve looks around and eyes a man who’s standing much too close to a woman. He should do something about that.

~

“It’s stupid, right?” Bucky says, kicking a stone out of the way.

The woman from the bar, Robin, shakes her head earnestly. “It’s not stupid.” 

“But it is, right? There’s gotta be somethin’ wrong with me.”

Robin resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Listen, chéri. If you’re this much in love with–”

“Stevie,” Bucky supplies.

“–Stevie, then you should just tell him. Does it look like there’s something wrong with me?” She gestures from her blue dress to her white shoes.

“You’re French, everyone knows that the French are…” Bucky makes a weird hand motion in lieu of finding the right words to finish his sentence.

“And does Maria look French to you? She’s American, just as you are. You may love whomever you choose,” she says. 

Bucky stops, leaning against a wall for support. “I can’t.”

Robin fixes her gaze on him and says, not unkindly, “So you’re going to find other people who, ah, speak French and talk to them instead of talking to him? There isn’t that many of us, you’ll run out soon.”

“I have a reputation, doll,” Bucky says loudly. He’s facing Robin but his eyes are glued to a group of men on the other side of the street. One of them gives him a thumbs-up gesture. The men turn the corner and Bucky slumps again. “I have a reputation.”

A strange sense of pity envelopes Robin. She had never felt so much sadness for a man before (mostly because men never seemed to feel much sadness for women, so she had never felt the need to appease their sensibilities). She presses a kiss to his forehead. “Then go. Keep your reputation.”

As she starts to walk away, he calls out, “Wait. Let me escort you home. It’s not safe at night.”

~

Morning breaks like the silence between two old friends.

Steve’s apartment is cold but the sun warms his bruised hands as he sketches. The shadows and lines form Bucky’s woman from the previous night, her dress fanning outwards as a detached hand spins her (although Steve knows the hand belongs to Bucky). He smudges, adds depth and shades based on where the light comes from. He finishes drawing her and stops, not trusting himself to draw Bucky in a manner that isn’t completely and utterly telling. 

Coffee comes next, alongside a dose of cough medicine to alleviate the heavy feeling in Steve’s chest. Steve swallows the sticky syrup and allows himself to grimace at both the taste and the pain from the actual motion of swallowing. The bruise on his cheek has turned a stormy shade of purple and his knuckles are red and raw. He has to go to Bucky; it’s their routine, Bucky patches Steve up while telling him never to do it again which they both know is a promise Steve can’t make and couldn’t keep if he did.

Seeing Bucky this morning seems more painful than his injuries. 

But he goes anyway.

~

To say Bucky is furious would be an understatement. He doesn’t speak when he opens the door, instead just pointing to the kitchen bench, which Steve knows is his cue to sit down, shut up and let Bucky calm down.

“What the hell, Stevie? When did this happen?” The words are punctuated by cupboard doors slamming shut and Bucky’s heavy footsteps.

“This guy wouldn’t leave this poor woman alone! C’mon Buck, you would have done something too,” Steve protests weakly.

Bucky fixes him with a dark glare. “I wouldn’t have been so stupid about it, Stevie! All the guys at the bar last night were twice your size. You don’t think.”

Bucky presses an antiseptic-soaked cloth to Steve’s knuckles and tries to pretend that Steve’s flinch doesn’t affect him. 

Steve’s gaze drops to the floor and he slumps. “I do think.” It’s barely a whisper.

Bucky stops, placing the cloth on the bench. “Do you?”

“I think too much about you.” Weak. Bucky makes Steve feel weak. Steve can’t raise his eyes from the floor, he doesn’t want to see the way Bucky has to be looking at him.

“You think about me?” The confusion in Bucky’s voice is almost tangible. Steve find his gaze being lifted up until all his can see is Bucky’s face. Bucky removes his hand from Steve’s chin. “Stevie?” 

“Constantly,” Steve murmurs. 

Bucky laughs, a laugh that borders on hysterical. “Of course. Of course you think about me. We’re friends, that’s all. Can’t be any other reason.”

So that’s what humiliation feels like; a sick feeling that burns its way through Steve from the feet up. He simultaneously feels too hot and too cold and he needs to get out and everything is too loud and too quiet and too much and god, this is why he was never going to tell Bucky, weak pathetic idiot. He pushes Bucky away and storms towards the door only to be yanked sharply backwards.

“What are you doing? Why are you leaving?”

“That’s what you want, right?”

“No, Stevie, that’s not what I want at all! I want you to sit your ass back down so I can fix you!”

“You can’t fix this, Buck!”

Steve’s words hang in the air before sinking and settling on the floor.

Bucky sighs and lets go of Steve’s arm. “Why do you want to leave me? You sick of me or something?”  
“Bucky, no. That’s… that’s not it at all,” Steve says. 

Bucky seems to collapse, leaning against the bench. “What is it, then?”

Steve doesn’t want to say anything, he can’t say anything; it’ll change everything irreparably. But he does. “I’m in love with you.” And he waits for the blow to fall.

But nothing happens. 

Steve risks a glance. Bucky is, for the first time since Steve has known him, slack jawed and speechless. The silence is deafening and Steve can’t help but stand perfectly still, as if moving would shatter something. 

“That can’t be right,” whispers Bucky, voice cracking. “You can’t love me, you can’t be that stupid.”

Steve’s brow furrows and heart breaks. “What?”

“You deserve better than me, you can’t be stupid enough to love me of all people. That’s stupid, even for you.”

What? “What are you saying?” Steve has never been more confused. 

Bucky finally looks him in the eye. “You’re sure you love me?”

“Surer than I’ve ever been.”

The blow lands, but it’s not what Steve’s expecting. Bucky’s lips are soft and warm against his and he’s being held like he’s something precious. 

“I guess you do speak French,” Bucky mumbles against Steve’s mouth.

Steve pulls away. “Bucky, what the fuck?”

**Author's Note:**

> So idk how but I thought of the first line and wrote this whole thing while I was waiting for my mum to get off the phone so enjoy?? And yes Robin is heavily based on Robin from Stranger Things (please don't sue me)


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